India 2013

Mike headed to India April 11th and was out of the country until April 27th.  He spent a little over a week in India followed by a week in Spain.

We'll just highlight India today - with quite a few pictures.

First up is the first picture we received shortly after he arrived in India.  He had been telling us about the bananas there and he quickly sent a picture to explain the size of them to us:

These are not abnormally sized apples and pear.  These are abnormally sized bananas.  He said he didn't try them because fruit made him nervous to eat.

He did actually work, but he also had a whole weekend there, plus a few extra days to look around.  The first trip his group went on was to the Sri Radha Krishna-Chandra Temple.

He said it was quite busy that day.  He said they kind of rushed people through it...as in kept flagging people to keep walking and not stop.

It probably wasn't his favorite temple of the three he saw.

Next up was the Chennakesava Temple.

This was just the gate.  The temple, apparently looked very similar to the third temple he saw.

He did take a picture of a statue with a larger second toe than first - just for me, though it didn't turn out.  My second toes are bigger than my "big toe" and Mike has always pointed this out as being a freakish thing.  He learned here that it means several things, but among them, that I am a descendant of royalty.  I will now only be answering when he addresses me as "Queen."

The third temple was Halebidu.

He thought this was the most interesting temple from the outside.

Looking at the picture above, you can see that each "level" of the carvings are a different animal.  Each animal means a different thing.  he doesn't remember them all and I am too lzy to look them up.  But, you have the link above to do your own research.

Hard to imagine we don't homeschool.

The carvings do look pretty amazing and he has several pictures from this last temple of these intricate carvings.

Next up: some various sights throughout India that don't necessarily correlate to one-another.

These are some surrounding areas and markets.

They did eat out at various restaurants as well as the hotel.  he always feels safest at the hotel with the food and says he makes sure to eat a very hardy breakfast before leaving because he's not sure what he's going to be offered during the rest of the day, though he tries most things he is offered.  On this particular trip they ate at a restaurant and the next morning Mike was really sick.  He called a co-worker visiting from Prague and found out she had gotten really sick too.  No one else had become ill, but the rest were from India and were, of course, used to the food.  Mike was able to take some antibiotics that had been prescribed before leaving in case this happened.  He said he felt better within a few hours, though he couldn't go in to work right away.  The woman from prague didn't have any antibiotics so she had to tough it out and wasn't able to head in to work at all that day.  She did say it was the best diet she'd been on though.

They were able to head to a bakery and try some treats.  Both kids had requested sweets for their "gift" but these sweets were going to go bad within a week and he wouldn't be seeing us for at least two weeks.

Mike liked these cars along the roads he saw.  He thought Jake would like them too because they were a little unique and small.  Jake still prefers a Lamborghini.

This is where Mike's office is located in India.  When a company has an American name on the front of the building, it is a requirement that they also have the Indian name somewhere as well.

This is just an average house as he's driving down the road.

Mike's co-workers there were extremely generous and a couple of the families hosted everyone for dinners. I can't imagine the amount of work involved - it always seems there are a lot of people at these meetings.  But, if they are ever in Minnesota, they are certainly welcome here!

A lot of pictures were taken from moving vehicles this time around.

This was the Palace of Mysore.  They didn't really tour it as he had visited it the last time he was in India.

At the end of this trip they took a field trip to a Jungle Resort.

They were able to go on a bit of a Safari and saw several different types of animals.

He said there were other deer that actually looked a bit like a cross between an American deer and a dog.  He didn't get a picture of those.  He also saw peacocks, but unfortunately those pictures didn't turn out.

(I keep telling him to learn to use my good camera and take them on these trips!)

At 6am on his last day, three of them headed out on a hike up this "hill."

The average temperature while he was in India was 90-100 degrees.  They started out early so it was cooler, but he said he got quite a workout. In fact, he ended up tossing this shirt into a plastic bag where it sat for another full week without seeing the light of day.  he warned me before washing it that I might want to hold my breath.  He said he would have thrown it away, except he really liked the shirt.

It looked like quite a view, so I imagine the trek was worth it!

During the down times at the resort, they played a game Mike had never seen.

He said it was like pool, but played with your fingers.  He was irritated with it because he would think he was flinging the white piece in one direction and it would go in the opposite direction.  I guess he needs more practice.

The next day he hopped a plane and headed for Spain via Paris.  We'll cover Spain in a different post.